According to Bill Bryson's "The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got that Way," the impact of the Danes and Normans led to the loss of a significant portion of the Old English vocabulary, with 85 percent of the original 30,000 Anglo-Saxon words becoming obsolete. This result left a mere 4,500 words that have endured through the ages, which is only about 1 percent of the entries in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Interestingly, the words that survived are foundational to the English language and human experience, encompassing essential concepts such as family, emotions, and daily activities. Words like man, woman, child, love, and eat continue to be integral to communication, highlighting their importance despite the drastic reduction in the overall vocabulary.